


A Heart for a Bear

by upset_and_confused



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Build-A-Bear, First Date, Laser Tag, M/M, awkward boys in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 12:50:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14425776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/upset_and_confused/pseuds/upset_and_confused
Summary: Sasuke really shouldn't have said yes to this date, I mean who takes a high school guy to Build-a-Bear? The answer, he should have known, was Naruto.





	A Heart for a Bear

**Author's Note:**

> I have technically been a Naruto fan for four years? I know I am late as hell to the party and honestly I am so embarrassed to be writing this fic but I am really happy with it so... Enjoy? More to come, I promise. Find me on tumblr at [MagicalWeirdism](http://magicalweirdism.tumblr.com) to talk about Naruto and request a ship!

Sasuke was the best looking guy in class. Naruto might hate him more than he liked him some days but even he could admit that. He had creamy pale skin, sharp cheekbones, large drake eyes, and even his hair was nice, he heard it smelled like licorice. Knowing all this Naruto really didn’t know why he had asked him out on a date, obviously Sasuke got asked out all the time, why would he agree to go out with Naruto? More surprising than Naruto asking him out was the fact that Sasuke said yes.

“He said yes?” Iruka asked, he was going over a lesson plan and barely paying attention to Naruto walking back and forth with his hands running compulsively through his hair. “That’s good.”

“No it’s not!” Naruto yelled, earning a pen flicked expertly at his head. It spoke to how anxious Naruto was that he just let the pen hit him instead of batting it away. He turned to Iruka and looked at him with terror stricken eyes, “If he had said no I would have been sad, yeah, but he said yes! What the hell am I supposed to do now!?”

His former teacher sighed, when he had brought this tiny orphan boy into his home, fed him, got him new clothes, and pulled back his blankets so Naruto could snuggle with him after night terrors, Iruka hadn’t really thought about how he would handle actual teen situations. He had been a rowdy kid, sneaking out of his foster homes and never staying in one area long enough to get comfortable with a long term relationship. He didn’t know if he was really wired for it. Friends, relationships, a regular table at a restaurant… He wanted those things for Naruto.

“Well… It’s been a while since I was on a date but I would suggest dinner and a movie, it’s a pretty standard date.” Iruka shrugged, “That was even if you don’t have anything to talk about you can talk about the movie over dinner.”

Naruto was nodding his head rapidly, looking like he was going to pass out, “Dinner, movie, talking, yeah, yeah, yeah…” Iruka watched his mind go a hundred miles a second and finally come to a rest with a face that looked slightly crestfallen “What if, uh, what if the person I want to take out is… What if he won’t like standard?”

Iruka sighed and moved aside on the couch, patting it for Naruto to sit next to him. Naruto had been nearly as touch started as Iruka growing up and it showed in the way he had no problem snuggling up to Iruka even though Naruto was above what most would consider snuggling age.

  
“Then you think about what your person would like. The best date I ever went on was to a fire eater show. It was at a renaissance festival that the guy worked at and the date was fantastic. He got very lucky afterward.”

“Maaaaa.” Naruto whined, jumping away to cover his ears and stick out his tongue, “I don’t want to hear about you having sex with a weirdo from a renaissance fair.”

“I’m saying do what you think Sasuke would like, or do what you know you would like.” Iruka picked up his pen and pulled a new stack of papers toward him, “Everyone is different and creative dates are always better.” Naruto drew his hands away and sat thoughtfully. In the momentary quiet Iruka let his mind stray back to the fire dancer, he had been gorgeous, pretty much perfect, Iruka wondered what happened to him. “And sex with fire eaters is hot in a very specific and amazing way.”

“Stoooooooop!”

***

“Got everything?”

Naruto smacked his ass loudly and then his hip just as loud, “Wallet in the back and keys on my hip, yes.”

Iruka rolled his eyes “You’re going to embarrass this poor boy.” He sighed before reaching to clap his shoulder, Naruto had spent far too long on his hair for Iruka to even consider mussing it. “You two have fun and if you need me call me, okay?”

Naruto bobbed his head and took a deep steadying breath before stepping out and heading to knock on the door, his feet quickening as he heard Iruka start the car and get ready to leave. The handle turned, Naruto felt his heart squeeze, and then Sasuke was standing there.

“You look amazing.” Naruto breathed. Sasuke did, black button down, black jeans, his hair was perfectly gelled and a row of onyx studs decorated his right ear, a dragon cuff was on his left. Naruto suddenly felt under dressed in an orange t-shirt and his favorite jeans. He had thrown on one of Iruka’s long necklaces and a couple of bracelets as an after-thought but Sasuke looked like an annoyingly brooding boyfriend from a bad YA novel and Naruto was helpless.

“Thank you.” Sasuke said like he was caught off guard, his eyes made a very obvious sweep of Naruto’s body, fuck he was wearing eyeliner. His expression was unreadable. “Orange suits you, you look less ridiculous than normal.”

If this were a cartoon this would be were an arrow was shot directly through Naruto’s heart and his eyes filled with enormous hearts.

“You’re standing there staring at me, are you planning to do that the whole time?” Sasuke failed to keep his expression neutral and Naruto felt his heart swell at the slight uptick of Sasuke’s lips.

“You didn’t have to say yes to this.” Naruto said, reaching to take Sasuke’s hand and failing to feel anything but excitement when Sasuke’s soft hand was enveloped in his extremely clammy one. “I can leave you at home.”

“If you take me for ramen I reserve the right to call my brother to come beat you up.”

Naruto growled at him and pinched the back of his hand slightly. They continued in silence for a moment. Normally Naruto filled any silence with chatter but with Sasuke it didn't feel so oppressive… It was almost nice.

“So where are you taking me?” Sasuke finally asked, looking sideways at Naruto and receiving a grin from the blonde in return.

“Well first I was thinking dinner and a movie, but that seemed too boring for the two of us, so instead I am taking you to the mall.”

“The mall didn’t seem boring too?” Sasuke asked dryly, they had a fine mall, but a few trips made it pretty bland. He had been to most every store, the kids stores and laser tag place being the exceptions.

“You’ll see.” Naruto sing-songed grabbing his hand and tugging him along as they neared the doors. Sasuke had a feeling this was going to be a disaster.

***

To be fair, this should have been a disaster, leave it to Naruto to make laser tag the most exciting thing Sasuke had ever done. He backflipped off a barrier wall and landed in front of Naruto so suddenly the boy tripped backward, crab crawling from his gun and laughing. The competition was what attracted them to each other. It was probably a little unhealthy but they loved one upping each other. Even if Naruto would complain about it later he was grinning like a maniac as Sauke pressed a toe firmly to his chest sensor and shot him point blank.

“I hate you.” Naruto growled, an excitement and sparkle in his eyes that only Sasuke could arouse.

“You are helpless against me, Uzumaki, admit it.”

“If you two fuck on the floor you have to clean the whole arena.”

Sasuke could feel the back of his neck flush and Naruto turned so red he managed to make the orange shirt look even more tacky.

“KIBA YOU ASS!” Naruto was scrambling up and rushing the employee who stood out of range giggling as the blonde jumped and shouted at him. Sasuke tried to keep himself from laughing too loudly but did find himself smiling wider than normal, reaching to rest a hand on Naruto’s back as he came up behind him.

“I’ll make sure to get him to the bathroom before we get too adventurous, thanks.” he called up to their classmate who laughed loudly and flipped off Naruto before retreating. Sasuke grinned at Naruto, “One more game then you feed me, agreed?”

The shot to the chest sensor and ensuing chase really shouldn’t have surprised Sasuke.

***

The mall food was a little better than he expected, it was something he and his brother never really ate but he was pleasantly surprised by how good the Greek food he got, and the Chinese food he took from Naruto, was.

He watched the blonde silently, Naruto was happily chattering away and didn’t seem to really be worried about Sasuke’s silence. They had an… Interesting relationship. They had kissed in front of their whole class several years before when Naruto had tripped and fallen into him in the middle of one of their frequent fights. ‘Frequent fights’. If any two words could describe their relationship it was those. Liking people, really liking them, was hard for the two of them. They had similar backgrounds after all. Naruto’s parents killed when he was young, everyone knew it was related to his dad’s position in law enforcement, no one knew exactly what had happened though. Sasuke’s entire family suffered the same fate and he knew who it was, he just didn’t talk about it. His brother and he ended up with a family friend who had almost literally run away with the circus until he had two kids to take care of.

With backgrounds like that it was no wonder that the two of them had a hard time accepting that they might kind of like the other so it became a ‘rivalry’. Their crushes were poorly kept secrets and the entire school knew long before the two of them did.

“What’s wrong?”

Sasuke blinked and realized that Naruto must have stopped talking, when did that happen? “Nothing is wrong.” He answered, flinching internally at how cold and distant he undoubtedly sounded.

“Are you sure? You looked a million miles away.” The look on Naruto’s face when he said it made it clear he assumed that Sasuke wanted to be that far away.

The dark haired teen reached across the table and shyly rested his hand in Naruto’s, “Why would I want to be anywhere else?”

The look Naruto gave him was so painfully sweet Sasuke realized he meant it. He didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world but right here, and wasn't that a strange thought…

***  
“Naruto?”

“Yeah?”

“Remember when I said I didn’t want to be anywhere but here?”

“Yeah?”

“I take it back.”

The blonde laughed loudly and tugged Sasuke between the bear statues and into the Build-a-Bear that looked like a crazy person’s version of Santa’s workshop. There were empty stuffed animal shells, diminutive clothes, and worst of all…

“Naruto! Sasuke!” Rock Lee called happily, rushing over to the two of them with frightening energy. “It was getting late, I was worried you would not make it!”

“Yeah, he’s been talking my ear off about the beauty of young love since I got in.” Sakura rolled her eyes and stepped around the counter, “How was laser tag?”

“Awesome!” Naruto crowed, beside him Sasuke looked just shy of fainting as he clearly began to realize what was happening.

“Did everyone in school but me know where we were going on this date?” He asked in a dazed voice.

“Naruto informed us just a few hours ago, do not worry.” Rock Lee assured, resting a hand on his arm to guide him toward the selection of empty stuffed animal caracases.

“Yeah, you’re not that far behind.” Sakura giggled, she looked sideways at Naruto. They had been a ‘couple’ in middle school for a month, Naruto’s longest relationship to date, and before that Sakura had been pretty single minded in her pursuit of Sasuke… It had never for a moment occurred to her to say no when Naruto asked for help setting up this date.

“We have bears and bunnies and cats and dogs…” Rock Lee was taking an annoyed looking Sasuke through the different animals he could choose, clearly unaware of how perilously close he was to getting stabbed. “Oh! And Pokemon!” At that Sasuke looked a little less murderous. Naruto grinned, Sasuke had carried a Charmander card in his binder for most of elementary school.

“Do, uh, you have Charmander?” He asked, trying and failing to look like he didn’t care.

“Naruto made certain to have us save the last one for you!” Rock Lee announced delightedly, pulling a Charmander from the bottom of the plush pile. If Naruto was a smarter man he might have decided to call the whole thing off when Sasuke turned to glare at him.

“Naruto is really sweet, isn’t he?” Sakura sing-songed, sticking her tongue out happily at Naruto as he walked to Sasuke and flipped her off.

“The sweetest.” Sasuke said between clenched teeth, thrusting the Charmander into Rock Lee’s waiting hands.

Naruto giggled and hugged him from behind, feeling Sasuke tense and then marginally relax as Rock Lee began to fill the Charmander with fluff.

“Not too fat…” Sasuke muttered, Naruto rolled his eyes.

“Pudgy Pokemon are the best.” He said, watching as Rock Lee finished up stuffing him and turned to Sasuke.

“Now take a heart.” He gestured to the little bins of smooth red hearts and red and white checkered ones. Sasuke rolled his eyes and reached to take a red one. “Rub it in your hands so it gets nice and warm,” The way Sasuke was rubbing it was more likely that the heart would catch fire, “Now rub it on your forehead so your friend will be very smart,” Sasuke looked like he was going to argue but in the end he pressed the heart to his forehead and Naruto watched with big happy eyes as he rubbed the heart on his head, “Now on your bicep so your friend is nice and strong,” Naruto was delighted beyond reason to see that Sasuke was finally, finally, smilingly tiny bit as he flexed and rubbed the heart on his bicep, “Now reach up as high as you can so your bear has dreams as high as the stars!”

“Careful.” Sasuke said dryly, “I don’t want the bear to have more ambition than I do.” Naruto barked a laugh and across the store Sakura joined in even as Sasuke reached up with the heart.

“Finally,” Rock Lee said, undeterred, “Give the heart a kiss so your friend knows how much you love it.”

Naruto grinned and watched as Sasuke sighed enormously and kissed the heart briefly before shooting Naruto a scowl.

“Very good now--”

“Dammit, Lee, can you get some register tape from the back?” Sakura called, a little girl with bright blue hair was bouncing on her heels and reaching for her stuffed kitten in a tutu.

“Give me just one moment, gentlemen.” Rock Lee said, hopping up and heading back to get register tape.

Naruto looked at Sasuke with a big smile, sure it wouldn’t surprise him if Sasuke snapped about this on their way back, but he was willing to bet no one had ever given him a more memorable date. He opened his mouth to make some joke but then Sasuke was turning to him and quickly pressing the red heart against Naruto’s lips.

“I’m worried my kiss won’t be enough.” He explained, his cheeks crimson as he snatched the heart back. “I just want to make sure it turns out right.”

Naruto barely knew what happened the rest of the date, he didn’t even remember teasing Sasuke when he named his Charmander ‘Calcifer’. The only thing he remembers between kissing the heart and getting off the bus was the feeling of Sasuke shyly reaching to hold his hand at the register and not letting go.


End file.
